Blackarachnia
Skills Battle Form: This is the standard robot form of all Cybertronians, and is the form the Predacons take when they wish to cease hiding and do battle. Blackarachnia may not exaaaactly be a true Predacon any longer, but this particular trait still applies to her. In this form, she is humanoid, and has access to her crossbolt launcher, a weak energy weapon that fills the vague functions of a dart gun and which she uses to disable an overly strong opponent in order to better destroy them. It fires a bolt wreathed in a low Energon pulse, and is designed to deliver her trademark poison, which it is loaded with, into the systems of a mechanical opponent. It is not easily deflected by metal-based armour due to the Energon, and on a mechanical target the cybervenom would disable any offensive capabilities within three minutes of delivery and leave the foe paralysed, spasming and, if they are capable of it, in great pain. The effect it has on biological systems is considerably reduced, though the venom will still cause nausea, headaches and occasional cold sweats for up to four days after it is delivered into the body of an organic life-form. In addition, it is actually surprisingly weak against non-metallic targets, to the point where kevlar renders the darts harmless, and even extremely thick and durable clothing may defeat them. Her “hands,” such as they are, are highly dextrous pincers designed to cut and slash rather than crush, and she knows how to use them, as well as her feet; she is rather talented as a martial artist, all things considered. In terms of strength and durability, the later iterations of Cybertronian life are considerably smaller and weaker than their predecessors, the better to take organic alternate forms. Blackarachnia is one of the smallest of these new classes of living robot, and is thus one of the weakest. She is able to bench-press around 720lbs in weight, and her body frame is not bulletproof, protecting her only against non-armour-piercing weapons, and even then only if those weapons do not strike a joint. Her entire fighting style, therefore, emphasises her need for stealth, cunning, speed and the unfair advantage gained with poisoned attacks. She is fast, with reaction speeds noticeably faster than a conditioned human, and her frame is designed to allow her to move quietly where larger Cybertronians would make noise. It would be fair to think of her as a glass cannon; if she ends up in a pitched battle, she'll suffer and probably lose, so she does her best never to end up in that situation. Beast Mode: Blackarachnia's beast mode is, rather predictably, a Black Widow spider. In this form, she is about as large as a wolfhound in terms of height, though a lot broader and longer, and thus something of a nightmare for arachnophobes. Her only weapons in this form are her stealth capabilities and her razor-sharp and venomous fangs. These fangs deliver the same toxin as her darts, with much the same effect on biological and non-biological entities. In this form, she is even more vulnerable to gunfire than before due to her spindly legs and the obvious targets of her thorax and torso, neither of which are as well armoured as her robot body. However, in this form, she is also almost completely silent, and despite her size is actually very hard to detect if you don't know she is there – again, like a real spider, in that sense. She can also produce artificial, polymer-based webbing, though it is lacking in terms of an offensive capability; it is produced too slow to shoot at anyone, and is used instead as a getaway device or weaved together in traps for the unwary. Miscellaneous: Blackarachnia is a competent scientist and inventor, though as she has no love for the subjects she often spends her time neglecting these particular skills, only using them when she is forced to. The one exception to this would be her skill with toxicology; she adores her venoms and poisons, and will spend a happy hour or three blending together new batches to replace the ones she uses on a day-to-day basis, as her spider form, though organic in other senses, cannot produce it's own. In addition to this, though her body is, for the most part, mechanical, it is also capable of replicating various biological functions and thus also suffers from the drawbacks of this; it can heal itself, but it takes time for it to do so and forces her to remain in Beast Mode while it works and it can 'eat' to replenish energy stocks but due to the primitive nature of her animal form's digestion, she can only consume food that has been properly treated beforehand – in other words, pre-digested, courtesy of a second toxin she uses on a beaten prey item. This semi-natural origin has also led to the need to sleep – she does not need sleep as often as a human might, but absolutely must rest at least four hours in every forty-eight. Due to possessing a digestive system, particularly dangerous poisons can, rather ironically, affect her as they might a human, though they will most likely have a dampened effect on her, and she can in fact “starve” if she goes without food – her power supply will shut down, sending her into a stasis mode until someone gets her to a suitable recharge point. Finally, Blackarachnia cannot remain in Battle Form for more than three hours at a time. Pandora's atmosphere is charged with an odd radiation, harmless to biological organisms but dangerous over time to Cybertronians. In order to escape it's effects, once this three-hour period is up, she must transform and remain in Beast Mode for up to five hours, in order for the contamination to clear up. If she does not, the corruption will degrade her logic circuits, resulting first in temporary confusion and pain, then permanent insanity and agony, before it finally terminates her. Personality Blackarachnia is fickle, dangerous, sly... and highly confused at the moment. Allow me to explain why. Originally a Maximal protoform, she was forcibly reconfigured into a Predacon by Megatron's personal scientist and torturer, Tarantulas. Though the Predacon programming overwrote the previous code, some of it remained; as a result, Blackarachnia is extremely confused and divided in her loyalty, and not really sure what she is any more. Superficially, she's sly and mistrustful, and hard to get to know. She's naturally solitary, and friends are a rarity for her, if she makes them at all. She'll be completely unused to the humans that exist in Pandora, and for good reason; on prehistoric Earth, when she roamed it, Homo Sapiens hadn't evolved from it's apelike ancestors yet. As a result, she may not know what to make of them, and will almost certainly either avoid them or attempt to prey on them in some fashion until persuaded that it's not a good idea to do that. However, due to her conflicted Maximal programming, she is also... hesitant, more so than she was before, about killing things in cold blood. In addition, she is unsure of what she is meant to do now, given that she clearly belongs in neither Cybertronian camp. As a result, she can be surprisingly vulnerable and lost, and perhaps not as invulnerable to loneliness as she once thought. Indeed, she might actively seek out company, only to be unsure of how to proceed when she finally finds it. This may lead to bouts of aggression, or it may lead to surprising frankness. That all depends on the person she interacts with. Blackarachnia is undoubtedly female. This isn't a case of cosmetics or superficial programming, but an actual fact about her. Primal Cybertronians have evolved a great deal from the clunkier Autobots and Decepticons, and unlike their ancestors, who were true robots in this regard, the Primal Cybertronians' partial biology has led to assignments of gender and even some form of romantic and sexual identity. Blackarachnia is capable of feeling love in the classical sense, though as yet she cannot decide what kind of male she would find good enough to trigger such an emotion. Sexuality is much less well-defined and developed in her, and given her physiology and mechanical psychology, it is likely more curiosity than true sexuality that drives her to engage with males in such a way Appearance The she-spider is clearly mechanical in appearance when in her robotic form, though that is less obvious in her beast mode. Standing at 6ft 4in tall, Blackarachnia stands taller than most humans, though she is slender in form and remarkably elegant in movement. She moves with a quiet grace, though an undeniably threatening one. Her body is golden, with black segments and some obvious spiderlike segments, includ ing her spider's limbs folded away for storage on her arms. Her face is humanoid, though her teeth are sharpened and predatory, and her eyes totally black, devoid of whites. Instead of hands, she has two remarkably dextrous pincers, which are only a little less useful than human hands would be, and which are razor sharp on the tips. When in Beast Mode, her spider form is ugly and decidedly menacing, black except for one great red 'hourglass' marking on her underside. Unlike a real spider, Blackarachnia has nine eyes when transformed, each of which glows an unpleasant green. Her legs are long and gangly, though extremely dextrous and precise in their movements, and they allow her to travel as a spider can - i.e. up walls and across ceilings. Her body is bulbous, and her fangs are clearly and prominently displayed, along with their large and bulbous venom sacs. She is, after all, a female Black Widow, the most poisonous kind! Relationships In her own world, Blackarachnia was (formerly) associated with the Predacons, and up until recently was considered one of their number. She also had something of an interest in the Maximal soldier Silverbolt, whose dorkish displays of chivalry, nobility and goodness were both highly amusing and rather touching to her. Indeed, just before being dragged to Pandora, Blackarachnia's plan was to contact Silverbolt and see if he could arrange a few more private, heartfelt meetings. That and get him to give her various bits of technology she no longer had access to, but hey, it wasn't all about manipulating his emotions, something of a rarity for her. IN PANDORA: Alipheese Fateburn XVI - Yeah, she's organic and kind of odd at that, but Black likes her. The girl's got serious servos on her, and besides she helped out with that one incident with the drunk. Tony Stark - Ugh. Well, fine, stealing things from him didn't go quite to plan, but hopefully she can bargain her way out of being his next science project... History Brought to primitive Earth on board the Maximal exploration ship, the protoform that would become Blackarachnia was jettisoned by the crew of the vessel in order that she and the rest of the protoforms would survive the battle with the pursuing Predacon warship, the Darksyde. For several months, she orbited the planet as her Cybertronian kin fought on the planet's surface, battling over the rich energon deposits and engaged in tearing each other apart, before the orbit of her pod decayed and she ended up crashing to earth. Both the Predacons and the Maximals deteched the pod's landing, and once again met to battle over it as they had every other resource on the planet. The Predacons won. Tarantulas was ordered to reformat the protoform into a loyal servant for Megatron, the better to capitalise on their advantage of numbers. Tarantulas, however, had his own agenda to serve. Megatron suspected as much, when the Predacon turned out to be another spider - a female spider, no less - but dismissed his worries, simply assuming that the new recruit would be as useful as the rest. He was right, in a manner of speaking... but also decidedly wrong. Taking the name Blackarachnia, the Predacon proved to be as ruthless as she was independent. It soon became clear that she was loath to take orders from Megatron, Tarantulas or the rest, something the leader of the Predacons took a rather dim view of. Indeed, he was right to; Blackarachnia attempted to betray him on a mission soon after, taking control of a weapons platform of alien origin and trying to use it to destroy both the Maximals and the Predacons who would not side with her. The attempt ended in disaster for her, as Tigatron of the Maximals was able to destroy the platform's power supply. Serving ungratefully with the Decepticons even after this incident, Blackarachnia no longer hid her scorn for her fellow warriors, often turning on them in fights if she thought it would give her some sort of advantage to do so. In particular, she earned the ire of Tarantulas and Inferno in this manner, the tarantula despising her for meddling in his plans, and Inferno declaring her traitor for "opposing the Royalty." These events came to a head after the Vok, the mysterious alien race behind the energon deposits on the Earth, attempted to destroy the planet to remove what they saw as a contamination of their experiment - in other words, the Cybertronians. Realising Tarantulas seemed to be planning to escape without them, Blackarachnia attempted to assassinate him, only for Inferno to intervene. In the ensuing brawl, Tarantulas was killed, his form burnt until it ceased to function by the drone's flamethrower, and the Black Widow herself was damaged, though she was able to overcome Inferno by disarming him and shooting him with his own gun. After the destruction of the Vok superweapon that was being used to threaten them, however, and the creation of the Transmetal forms on both factions, Blackarachnia began to operate more and more independantly, eventually becoming a complete free agent. When the Fuzors, blended Cybertronians that seemed to have a beast form representing two or more animals, arrived on the planet, she soon found herself trading blows with one of them, known as Silverbolt. Well, she was throwing punches, anyway. He refused to fight, as she was female. Needless to say, this infuriated her, and she did not repay the kindness. However, over time, Blackarachnia found herself drifting more and more towards the Maximal faction, and the gallant - if foolish - Fuzor who had caught her attention. At times, she could even be found aiding them, though always in such a way as to never get caught. Finally making up her mind to discuss what she wanted to be properly with Silverbolt, Blackarachnia made her way towards the Maximal base, hoping that they wouldn't simply blast her on sight. She needn't have worried. They never got the chance. The black tentacles of Pandora got to her first. Pandora History